What if my only contribution is spamming “haha look at your stupid hat!!”? I don’t know if that’s a thing. I’ve never played.

You made a lot of points here. Many I agree with, some I don’t, but I specifically want to address this because it seems to be such a common misconception.

It does and it doesn’t discard the original. It isn’t impossible to recreate the original (since all the data it gobbled up gets stored somewhere in some shape or form and can be truthfully recreated, at least judging by a few comments bellow and news reports). So AI can and does recreate (duplicate or distribute, perhaps) copyrighted works.

AI stores original works like a dictionary does. All the words are there, but the order and meaning is completely gone. An original work is possible to recreate by randomly selecting words from the dictionary, but it’s unlikely.

The thing that makes AI useful is that it understands the patterns words are typically used in. It orders words in the right way far more often than random chance. It knows “It was the best of” has a lot of likely options for the next word, but if it selects “times” as the next word, it’s far more likely to continue with, “it was the worst of times.” Because that sequence of words is so ubiquitous due to references to the classic story. But over the course of following these word patterns, it will quickly glom onto a different pattern and create a wholly new work from the original “prompt.”

There are only two cases in which an original work should be duplicated: either the training data is far too small and the model is overtrained on that particular work, or the work is the most derivative text imaginable lacking any flair or originality.

Adding more training data makes it less likely to recreate any original works.

I am aware of examples where it was claimed an LLM reproduced entirely code functions including original comments. That is either a case of overtraining, or far too many people were already copying that code verbatim into their own, thus making that work very over represented in the training data (same thing, but it was infringing developers who poisoned the data, not researchers using bad training data).

Bottom line: when created with enough data, no original works are stored in any way that allows faithful reproduction other than by chance so random that it’s similar to rolling dice over a dictionary.

None of this means AI can do no wrong, I just don’t find the copyright claim compelling.

I had an A500 and the 40MB drive was as expensive as the computer.

I can definitely account for 1.

Also, this copy reads like it was written by AI. If this is indicative of the stuff on the website, I very much would not like to read more. If it was written by a human, they should definitely lay off the LSD before writing.

it is obvious that this powerful synergy will change our societal norms and potentialities.

Fuck right off.

Tricky thing is believing in something gives you commonality. Not believing in something really doesn’t.

“I don’t believe.”

“Me either.”

“Good talk. Same time next week?”

I wouldn’t call it ignorance. My bliss is based on considerable reading and contemplation. Way more than ought to be necessary, all things considered. I wish some of the understanding I’ve developed over the years would’ve been explained when I was young. There are things which, once explained, drive the logical mind to an inevitable conclusion.

I’ve been there. Posted my story, but I didn’t talk about the lifelong anxiety that comes with a lengthy layoff. Continually pursued higher pay at shittier jobs to try to get ahead of things for when the rug gets pulled out from under me again. It’s corrosive. Losing income and insurance when everyone is counting on you to provide makes you feel like your self-worth is completely tied to your job and ability to provide.

Which time?

First time happened after I’d been with my first real job for ten years because the business was changing and there wasn’t a role for me. I was out of work for 7 shitty months trying to have my own business starting from the few customers we had left when they let me go. It was right after I bought a house and had a baby. It was fucking awful.

Second time was after COVID. First we all took a 10% pay cut to avoid layoffs. Then two months later when federal assistance expired, they cut 1/3 of the company across the board. I’m a little fucking bitter about that to be honest, but I had a new remote job lined up within a couple of weeks that paid quite a bit better.

Last time was 5 months ago. Just got hired this week. Start next month. It sucked. Wiped out my whole retirement savings, so I get to start over at 51. But we made it through and potentially I won’t have to switch companies again.

I mostly get what you’re saying, though I don’t have the requisite understanding to follow formal proofs, but if there is one thing I do know for certain, it’s that “understanding” is anthropomorphizing and shorthand for something that is very much not understanding in a human context at all.

I get that it can be hard to find the right words to explain a some of these emergent phenomena, but I think it’s misleading to use words that make AI appear to have a thought process akin to anything we could understand as such—at least in settings where folks might not understand the shorthand as such.

And maybe everyone here is aware of that, but it makes me uneasy, hence this comment to hopefully make that point.

I don’t remember after my first car. But I got a really big raise at work one year and bought the new Malibu the year it was redesigned. Black with leather interior. First song played:

Radar Love by Golden Earring

It’s a great fucking song to drive too fast to.

Okay. Well I’m not that worried until I see where things are headed. I can see a lot of ways for things to go badly, but no point in borrowing trouble over it.

Yes and this was my reasoning for saying it would be fine to federate. But I’ll point out that federating ads would mean using my server’s infrastructure to serve ads on behalf of someone else. That would cost the admin more money and would require more user donations to keep it going. So just being able to block isn’t the necessary solution. Not sure that was even your point but I wanted to bring it up.

My instance is defederated from threads. At the time I mildly disagreed with that decision. Federated ads would vindicate that decision. I don’t need threads content that badly.

Well that sounds enshitty.

We need to bring back people who can identify shops from some of the pixels and having seen quite a few shops in their time.

You’re not going to out-compete the sociopaths if you’re a saint. That’s a reality.

I’m not a fan of Hitler Steve Jobs, but I am a big fan of the guy who killed Hitler Steve Jobs.

You can’t make a person understand anything. If the very simple explanation of “draft the unwilling and send them to die” doesn’t convince them, they don’t want to be convinced. I couldn’t name a single person who thinks that’s good, just maybe some folks who would say it’s sometimes a grim necessity. And I guess I’m in the latter camp, but shit would have to be dire.

I could list a bunch of movies but it’s easier to say anything scored by John Williams. Superman, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jaws. I never caught Close Encounters of the Third Kind but I’ll go out on a limb and say it’s good just on faith.

He scored some other things, but that’s what I remember off the top of my head.